Steve Zahn's got the utterly charming antihero thing down, but some things he learned the hard way

To a certain breed of us sleep-until-nooners, gym-class failures, and back-of-the-class snickerers, Steve Zahn has long been movie royalty—and the fact that Hollywood has witnessed his performances in Out of Sight, Riding in Cars With Boys, and Rescue Dawn and still doesn't seem to treat him as such just endears him to us even more. (Daniel Craig? A worthy James Bond. But imagine Zahn with bedhead in a rumpled rented tux? Coulda been genius.) The 40-year-old father of two lives quietly on a horse farm in Kentucky with his wife, Robyn. Strange but true fact: J. Peterman, of the verbose catalog, is his father-in-law. Strange but oddly hot fact: Jennifer Aniston can be seen instructing Zahn's painfully shy motelier to caress her derriere in this month's indie romantic comedy Management.

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ELLE: In 2008's Strange Wilderness, your character was hospitalized to get an angry turkey detached from your member. What humiliating medical intervention have you actually experienced?

SZ: High school senior year, my buddies and I went down to spring break in Pensacola, Florida. We didn't fit in at all, and of course, there was no getting laid happening. On the way back, we stopped at a Hardee's restaurant for breakfast, and I got something stuck in my throat. I got home and said, Man, that thing is still in my throat. So I went to the hospital. And this doctor kept going, "Now exactly what did you do down there at spring break?" It turns out I had a yeast infection in my esophagus. And he kept trying to get me to tell him about whatever crazy sexual thing that happened, and I'm like, "Man, I swear it was a Hardee's biscuit."

ELLE: You met your wife in 1991 while in a touring production of Bye Bye Birdie. What's your first memory of her?

SZ: I'd never done a musical before, so I was thinking, It's going to be awesome to go on the road for 13 months with a bunch of dancer girls. The first week, I was so disappointed because all those girls were kind of young and they weren't my style. But my wife was hired a week late. She walked in wearing those plastic dance pants and leg warmers, smoking a cigarette and cussing. I was like, That is what I'm talking about right there.

SZ: Church. You'd just sit there in church and go, Well, we got an hour here. Should I think about what I'm going to do later? Go home. Watch wrestling. Eat lunch. That took 10 seconds. Now I'm going to think about having sex with everyone in this church, starting with the first pew on the left and going all the way around. Okay, that one, yes. Skip. Skip. Skip. Yes.

ELLE: In Management, you play a motel manager who hamhandedly gifts guest Jennifer Aniston with a terrible bottle of champagne. What's been your lamest romantic gesture?

SZ: I've done flowers and kicked myself. Flowers are so lame.

ELLE: What's your beef with flowers?

SZ: Dude. Trust me. You can never do flowers. That's like a test, or like the World War II Enigma code.

ELLE: So women use the flower ruse to psych us out?

SZ: Yes. I'm also convinced women actually think they can read minds. Like when a woman goes, "I can tell you don't want to hang out with me today." And you're like, "What are you talking about? I actually do!"

ELLE: So they think they're psychics, but they're lousy psychics?

SZ: Yeah, they're not very good at it. They're usually wrong. But don't make me sound like an asshole.

ELLE: Some hypotheticals, if you would. Of these male costars— Christian Bale, George Clooney, Martin Lawrence, Matthew McConaughey, Eddie Murphy—which would be most easily talked into lubing himself up with oil and jumping out of a cake at a friend's bachelorette party?

SZ: You'd imagine McConaughey, but actually, George might be better with it. He's a joker.

ELLE: Which would you send on a long car trip to accompany someone with whom you hope to get even?

SZ: Eddie. But he doesn't have time for that. Actually, he probably wouldn't even ride in the car. He'd put one of his guys up front.

ELLE: Which might you expect to be 15 hours late to dinner?

SZ: Martin. But you already know the answers to these questions, man.

ELLE: Which could talk you out of a speeding ticket?

SZ: Christian. He's a quick-witted, funny dude.

ELLE: The guy caught on tape screaming at that director of photography is talking you out of a ticket?

SZ: Yeah. I love Christian to death. And nothing against that DP, but the first thing I thought when I heard it was, Maybe everybody on set thought that guy was an asshole, and Christian's the only one who can call him out.

ELLE: Finally, which might you expect to be with when a routine speeding ticket devolved into both of you lying prostrate on the highway getting Tased?

SZ: Matthew. He would be trying to do a really good thing, and it would just be bad. I'd have to tell him, "Dude! He doesn't get you. Just stop talking right now." Or he would take his shirt off, and the cops would think he was getting ready to fight.

ELLE: If my wife said she could no longer sleep with me because all she could think about was you, what could I say to cure her?

SZ: "Did you know that guy once had a yeast infection in his esophagus and he fuckin' made up a story that it was a Hardee's biscuit? That's the kind of guy we're dealing with."